Council Chairman to write to govt over suicide of farmer

Published: Friday, November 23, 2007, 19:39 [IST]

Subscribe to Oneindia News

Nagpur, Nov 23 (UNI) Maharashtra Legislative Council Chairman Shivajirao Deshmukh today said he would send a letter to the state government asking it to make an inquiry into the suicide of a young farmer in Buldhana district in Vidarbha region of the state, allegedly after he was not registered in the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS).

Mr Deshmukh said the matter was serious and deserved proper investigation by the government, after Leader of the Opposition, Pandurang Phundkar raised a point of propriety.

Mr Phundkar said that the 21-year-old farmer, Mahadev Thakre, committed suicide on November 22 as his name was not included in EGS, despite his repeated requests, on the directions of the local legislator. The legislator's agents had also threatened Thakre and demanded Rs 10,000 from him, Mr Phundkar alleged.

Diwakar Raote (Shiv Sena) alleged that since Mr Thakre was a correspondent for Marathi daily 'Deshonnati', which had published several reports against the local legislator's illegal money-lending operations, the legislator had refused to help him.

Meanwhile, Minister for Medical Education Dilip Walse-Patil said that the government would write to the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry to ban the television commercial of Axe deodorant spray. Raising a point of propriety, Usha Darade (Congress) described the ad as offensive to women. The commercial shows hundreds of women in swim-wear sprinting to grab a man, she said, asking: ''Can a woman be obtained simply by spraying a certain deodorant?'' UNI